The expedition has been completed, click here to read the dispatches or click here to see the photo gallery. Watch the documentary below:

The Bangladesh Expedition is a mission to document and record the severe weather of Bangladesh. Forecasting support is provided by meteorologist Jon Finch who spent years studying and forecasting Bengali weather from the United States. Further support is provided by Dr. Ashraf M. Dewan and the Department of Geography at the University of Dhaka as well as Tim Vasquez and the Digital Atmosphere forecasting software.

The Documentary - For decades storm chasers have learned about the legendary storms of Bangladesh. First through the work of people like Thomas Grazulis and then by the great work of Jonathan Finch and his website. Since the 1800's newspaper reports have startled the world with devastation from what can only be long and violent tornadoes. Meteorological soundings show upwards of 9000 J/KG as relatively common due to the large amounts of moisture streaming up from the Bay of Bengal. This documentary will focus on our mission, the culture of Bangladesh and will explore the uniqueness of their weather to the fullest extent.

The Science: We will be essentially operating as a mobile mesonet from Dhaka to Fairdpur and Manikganj taking measurements of temperature, dewpoint, windspeed and direction as well as photographic and videographic time located information. We are also running a radar archive from Agartala and Kolkata. The result of this data will likely result in a scientific research paper.

Kalboishakhi Warning!

In Bangladesh severe storms are known by either Nor'wester for the direction from which they come, or by the term kalboishakhi which means thunderstorm. The Bangladesh expedition has photographic equipment to capture these storms as well as meteorological equipment to measure wind speed, direction, temperature and dewpoint.

Hail No!

Bangladesh is home to the world's deadliest tornado and also the world's heaviest hailstone which was reported to weigh 2.2lbs (that's the weight of 7 baseballs). This same storm killed 92 people from hail alone and the nearby region of India had the world's deadliest hail storm on record with 246 fatalities. The Bangladesh expedition has equipment to measure the diameter and weight of hail on the spot.

Cyclone!

Bangladesh is home to some of the most violent cyclones (also known as Typhoons and Hurricanes). The Dhola cyclone is the most deadly in recorded history and killed 500,000 people on November 12, 1970. Due to much of the country and coast being near sea level it's extremely susceptible to storm surge and flooding.